Remember Norman Vincent Peale?
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I like the book Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich.
I believe the positive thinking culture has spawned an unhealthy tendency to deny real and legitimate feelings and contributed to blurring lines between actual negativity and healthily realistic. Often the focus is on thinking positive without mentioning the other steps to becoming enlightened, so there’s a large part of the equation missing.
I also believe that the continual push to be positive or else contributes to stress and depression because there is pressure to be absolutely positive about everything in order to “fit in” or risk being ostracised for having feelings that are anything less than 110% positive (such as Barbara found when she got breast cancer).
There are many resources out there that insist one eliminates anyone from your life who is not positive – that is often taken to mean people who challenge you, have differing beliefs, etc etc. The message is often to surround yourself only with people who think like you do, don’t question you or cause you any (healthy) discomfort.
I was reminded of this recently when I read the comments on another blog (a blog about bipolar depression) where the young lady commenting noted that in her country there has been advertising to educate the public that depression isn’t a sign of weakness and people suffering depression are encouraged to reach out for support. The young lady noted that everyone who she had tried to reach out to told her she was being a downer or she should just eat some chocolate or something.
Barbara’s book raises many good points that have resulted from the Smile or Die culture. I believe that top of the list are the decline in empathy and the rise of narcissism. It’s a fascinating book and well worth a read.
This is not to suggest that being grateful for what one has or any other positive reinforcement of one’s self or position in life is wrong. I just personally believe that many have taken it too far and literally turned it into Smile or Die.